This invention relates to a tube retainer for holding heat exchange tubes in place in a heat exchange apparatus such as a radiator.
A known heat exchange apparatus is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,344,478 issued 17 Aug. 1982 to Petaja et al. In this apparatus, each heat exchange tube is held in place by a separate spacer or retainer which resiliently and releasably receives one of the tubes. Thus, each retainer must be individually attached to and removed from a tube to secure and remove the tube from the assembly. To remove a retainer from its corresponding tube, a protruding portion of each retainer must be grasped by a pair of pliers. But first, the retainer must be oriented so that the appropriate protruding portion is aligned so as to be accessible to the pliers. It would be desirable to provide a tube retainer which does not require alignment and which can be removed without the use of pliers.